USDA Releases RFA for 2017 Specialty Crop Multi-State Program

Tue, June 27, 2017

Please be advised:

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS), requests applications for the fiscal year (FY) 2017 Specialty Crop Multi-State Program (SCMP). AMS will competitively award funds to State departments of agriculture solely to enhance the competitiveness of specialty crops through collaborative, multi-state projects that address the following regional or national level specialty crop issues: food safety; plant pests and disease; research; crop-specific projects addressing common issues; and marketing and promotion. You can find more information below:

Approximately $7 million may be available to fund applications under this solicitation.

This RFA contains guidance for multi-state partners, who will prepare applications that will include objectives for SCMP projects, the eligibility criteria for projects and applicants, and the application forms and associated instructions needed to apply for a SCMP award. Guidance for Participating States about their responsibilities in the pre-award period are provided in the RFA and in the Participating State Instructions.

The only entities eligible to apply directly to this program are State departments of agriculture that have agreed to participate in the program. Therefore, there are two deadlines. The first deadline is for the multi-state partners to submit their applications to a Participating State. The second deadline is for the Participating States to submit the applications to AMS via Grants.gov after the Participating States have screened the multi-state partner applications for compliance with the requirements of this RFA.

A list of significant dates are provided below:

Required Action

Responsible Entity

Deadline

Inform AMS of participation status

State Departments of Agriculture

July 11, 2017

Application Submitted to Participating States

Multi-State Partners

September 25, 2017

Application Submitted to AMS via Grants.gov

Participating States

October 24, 2017

For more information, visit the SCMP website or contact Christian Olson at 501-225-1598 or christian.olson@aad.ar.gov.